The B-17 "Ye Old Pub" escorted by the Messerschmitt Bf 109 ... (Drawing by Nicholas Trudgian)

The German skies on fire

The Allied bombing campaign over Germany is in full swing. It’s a compassionless business. The purpose is the complete destruction of the civilian and military infrastructures. It aims at wearing down the morale of the civilian population, hoping for the eventual surrender of the Reich. The Americans share with the British the responsibility for the strategic bombing. The flying machines at the disposal of the USAAF Bomber Command are the Liberator B-24 and the B17 Flying Fortress. The latter is one of the most famous four-engine planes of the war, and the protagonist of this story.

Flock of B-17 flying at high altitude with destination Bremen (Photo USAAF)

In Western Europe, Great Britain is the bridgehead for the fight against the Nazi Germany.

20 December 1943, at the Kimbolton Airport, Cambridgeshire. Loaded with high explosive ordnance and firebombs, tens of B-17 of the 379th Bomber Group warm up their engines. The noise from the propellers pervades the otherwise silent English farmland. The crews are stepping up their preparation for the incumbent mission. They know that many of them will not come back. According to statistics, one third of the departing planes will be destroyed. The German antiaircraft fire is deadly. Additionally, the Allied fighter planes don’t yet enjoy the fuel range indispensable for protecting the bombers from the enemies’ Messerschmitt over the entire mission. At some point they’ll have to turn back and leave the bombers to their own means. At that moment they’ll be most vulnerable to the German wolf pack, which can attack them at leisure.

Machine-gunner in action on board a flying fortress (Photo USAAF)

Only the bomber’s gunners will be standing in their plane’s defence. They are boys in their late teens; in their glass domes they’re the most exposed to the high altitude’s freezing temperature. Their oxygen masks often freeze and they need to wear the padded suit and gloves for the time of the mission, least the exposed skin glues to the frozen guns. It’s easy to imagine their feeling in that moment: their heart running and their skin sweaty in spite of the cold. They know that the worst of the mission won’t be the duels with the enemy’s fighter planes. It’ll be the hundreds of guns that will target them from the ground. The Flak 88s are the best antiaircraft batteries in the war. No ability trick can insulate them from the danger. It’ll come down to the bomber officer to determine the fastest route in and out of the ordeal. It’ll be a straight line fending through the explosions, which will shatter the plane; and the shrapnel, which will rip the plane as a paper toy. At the signal, the bomb load will be dropped. Free of the burden, the Flying Fortress will suddenly gain height, its last challenge being the enemy fighters’ revengeful reaction.

B-17 flying over Bremen (Photo USAAF)

Those might be the thoughts in the head of the crews. Today, their objective is Bremen, one of the best defended among German cities. They know what expects them and can’t be under any illusion. Just taking off full-loaded is challenging enough. At the red flare, they depart. Lieutenant Charles “Charlie” Brown is the pilot of the Flying Fortress that has been nicknamed “Ye Olde Pub”. After a long run on the tarmac the overloaded plane takes off.

Picture above: in the two colored ellipses Kimbolton (airport of departure of the "Ye Olde Pab", about 100 kilometers north of London) and Bremen (city in the north of Germany and target to be bombed). The distance in a straight line between the base and the goal is about 650 kilometers, but a direct approach would be a suicide because the overflight of hundreds of miles of enemy territory very well defended, so you have to point north on the sea and only to the last enter on the German earth. The route is safer but the route stretches to almost 800 kilometers, the same way back ...

Its northeast route takes them over the Northern Sea and at the longitude of Wilhelmshaven they take a sharp right-turn and head towards Bremen. As soon as they reach the coast the defence batteries come into action. The black balls of smoke of the explosions pinpoint the sky below the bomber that the altitude so far protects. The B17 pilots align their planes into the “Combat Box” defensive formation. Not without anxiety, they say goodbye to their fighter jets’ peers who are compelled to turn around. Now, they can count only upon their .50 calibre M2 Browning machine guns. The Ye Olde Pub has been assigned to the most dangerous position in the formation, which is called “Purple Heart” because in previous missions many planes occupying that position have been shot down and the crew issued a Purple Heart medal in memoriam. Suddenly, from the South a formation of German fighter planes appears. They are BF109 and F190. The fight starts immediately with gruelling violence and the sky fills with tracers and bullets. The chasers try to scatter the American formation, aiming at destroying the “wall of fire” that results from their combined force.

B-17 Bombardiers direct to Bremen (Photo USAAF)

Fighting the enemy back, the American formation succeeds in standing firm. The fight starts to exact its tool: some planes are hit and crash out of the formation with their engines in flames. Some explode altogether. Casualties decimate the other side too.The Ye Olde Pub takes in some hits, but continues straight on. As abruptly as they arrived, the German fighters vanish. A surreal quiet follows the hellish combat. No one rejoice, as the disappearance of the enemy anticipates that the American planes have reached the range of the anti-aircraft artillery. Over 250 batteries of ’88 mm protect Bremen. They start firing simultaneously. From now on, no route change would be wise. The commander inserts the autopilot. It will allow the plane to proceed steadily on a right line, favouring precision in the unloading of the bombs. Through the “Bomb Run” the crew is at the mercy of their good luck. The close explosions powerfully shake the structure of the plane. It might appear to the crew that they’ll never make it through that hell.The inevitable happens. A shell explodes just in front of the plane, damaging its nose, knocking out the engine number two and damaging the number four. The Flying Fortress succeeds in reaching the target. “Bombs away!” and the loss of weight lift the plane. Mission accomplished. Everyone’s mind now focuses on the task of reaching home. Because of the heavy damage, the plane has lost part of its speed capacity. The crew knows that the other planes won’t wait for them and they’ll have to deal alone with the consequences. As soon as they’re out of the city sky, the German fighters would fall on top of them. With visible plumes of smoke coming from two engines the Ye Ole Pub makes for an ideal prey.

The crew prepares for their last stand. The BF-109 Gustav close in from multiple sides. On board the American plane, the Browning machine guns go on a shooting spree to try to keep the enemy at a distance. It doesn’t work, and the plane is hit hundred of times. The rear gunner, Sgt Ecky Eckenrode collapses dead on his weapon. The centre-right gunner and the radio operator are hit too. Engine number one is hit. Now only one engine remains fully operational. Other bullets damage the electric and the hydraulic systems. As a consequence, the functionality of the rudder, of the radio and of the oxygen supply are affected. Commander Brown is hit too. The first officer is caring for the wounded and can’t help the pilot. Brown does what he can, but because of the pain and the lack of oxygen he collapses on the controls. The Ye Olde Pub slides sideways and plunges into a spiral descent. The German fighters take it for doomed, and disappear. Losing height allows a better oxygen flow. At 600 meters Brown recovers and takes the B-17 back under his control.

John Shaw describes in the picture the scene of the wounded B-17 as it flies over the German airport from where Stigler will take off to finish it ...

In the outskirts of the city the German fighter planes are refuelling and reloading. A Luftwaffe veteran, First Lieutenant Franz Stigler, spots the B-17 wreck flying overhead. He’s a 28 years old Bavarian with 23 victories in the sky, and has been proposed for the Iron Cross. Another prey could shorten the time to its medal and the pilot jumps on his Gustav, whose engines are still warm from the previous combat engagements. In brief, he’s tailing the wrecked Flying Fortress, ready to fire. The lack of action in the enemy plane intrigues him though: the machine guns are silent and the pilot doesn’t even try to disengage. Franz gets closer, aware of the risk. He responds to a code of honour. In Africa, his commander Gustav Rodel told him “Should I come to know that you shot at a man who parachuted, I’ll make a point of shooting you myself!” Maybe, he’s now associating that plane to a giant parachute. The BF-109 is now only a few metres far from the four-engine bomber. The plane is terrible conditions and Franz wonders how it can stay airborne. On engine stopped altogether, two seem to be still working but are ejecting plumes of smoke and jets of oil, and only one of them seem to work properly. The main rudder is badly damaged; the body of the rear gunner hangs from the turret; through the breaches in the fuselage he’s able to distinguish corpses and wounded crew members. Franz sides the cockpit and notes the pilot smeared in blood, displaying difficulty in handling the controls.The German pilot makes up his mind about his duty as a person, which presently is conflicting with the military code. He signals to the wounded pilot to descend, land and surrender. England is too far and beyond reach for a plane in these conditions. Commander Brown hints at a “No” by moving his head. With gestures Franz insists and make signs inviting him to deviate towards Sweden, a neutral country where the crew would be detained, and had better chance to land safely. The American pilot doesn’t seem willing to give up. In the meantime the German coast gets closer, and with it the anti-aircraft coastal batteries.

Franz Stigler

Charlie Brown

Stigler sticks to his stance. He takes an extra step and aligns his wing with the bomber’s. They are low-level flying. Both the American and the German emblems are visible from the ground and the anti-aircraft crews hold the fire for the risk of hitting the Gustav. Brown is astonished: an enemy is saving their lives. The planes fly past the coast and into the open sea. The B-17 remains miraculously airborne. Stigler must be thinking that it’s difficult to take down a B-17.Approaching the English coast, Stigler has to turn back. The two enemies look at each other for a last time. They hint at wishing good luck to each other. After more long minutes of anguished flight, the Ye Olde Pub crash lands at the base of Seething, Norfolk, not far from the coast. The ground staff is flabbergasted. The B-17 is riddled with bullets and literally falls to pieces. The crew is helped out of it and sent straight to the hospital. “How could you possibly return?” someone asks to Commander Brown. “We were done. Then an angel appeared and escorted us all the way from Bremen.”

What remains of Bremen after the bombings (Photo USAAF)

Commander Brown and the crew are instructed not to share the story with anyone. It’s the High Command’s policy to discourage any hint of sympathy towards the enemy. Stigler can’t talk either, least he would be court martialled. Both he and Charlie survived the war. Brown remained in the USAAF and retired as a colonel. Stigler moved to Canada, where he became a successful entrepreneur. In 1990 Colonel Brown was invited to a ceremony of remembrance for the events of World War Two. In an interview, he told the journalists of the facts over Bremen, moving many among the audience. Someone insisted for him to try to find the German pilot.After four years of researches, Brown received a letter from a certain Franz Stigler, revealing him as the Bremen angel. They met in the United States and developed a friendship that lasted until the last flight of both men, which took place in 2008, a few months distance one from the other.

Franz Stigler and Charlie Brown together fifty years later ...

Note

This article was published in the magazine "Aeronautica" No. 10 of 2018. The Grac thanks the author and the Arma Aeronautica Association for the concession.

On that day, 20 December 1943, the Luftwaffe’s ace Franz Stigler had every possible reason to shoot down the Ye Olde Pub flying fortress. He had a duty to execute hei commander’s orders.He could exact a vengeance over the enemy that was destroying his city and killing its inhabitants.He would have advanced the concession of his decoration.He would have a further reason to be honoured by his peers, his superiors and his countrymen.He would have earned a monetary reward.His risk would have been negligible, as the Ye Olde Pub’s gunners were incapacitated.

However Franz, as a human being, took a personal view: what is courage, honour, glory and justice if I do away with defenceless people?The answer came from within, over the suggestion of the Almighty, and couldn’t be any other one: “there’s no courage, honour, glory justice in killing unarmed people.Because of that thought Stigler decided to execute the orders of his conscience and not his general’s. It can happen!